Magenta Lizard

We got to go back there on one of The Beast tours I went on, while Beast was running. Apparently the helix isn’t a lock-out area. I’ve also seen maintenance down there before. The last time I did (from the ride), earlier this year, I waved and one saw me and waved back

Was the Mystic Timbers trademark originally registered under Cedar Fair LLC, it was it always under Kings Island Park LLC as it is currently?

He’s always outgrowing his enclosures!

What’s odd to me is that the past several times I’ve been at the park and rode Racer to look at the construction, I haven’t actually seen anyone working. I don’t know if I just happen to be hitting at the wrong times/days or what. But it feels strange because they had been working so fervently (including at least one Sunday I was there) back when they were clearing trees.

They want enthusiastic people to participate in the dancing. Usually that’s kids because they haven’t yet been made to feel self conscious about dancing. But I have no doubt the performers enjoy happy adults joining too!

Ok, so despite going through two years of Haunt pics and the pics I took during two behind-the-scenes tours of Firehawk last year, I’m coming up empty on any good pics of the side of that building. Apparently I only took pics once I was farther into the tour, and never got any pics of the front of Chaos. I think this red and grey may be it in the background, but it’s hard to tell for sure (pic I took with my friend when he was the front host at Board To Death) and it’s the closest I can find so far. I’ve pretty much convinced myself the blue and grey color scheme of that building IS a teaser, and is new this season. But! I would like to have more definitive proof.

I feel like the crowds have been heavier all this season so far, except for a few particularly bad weather days. Even on days with moderately bad weather it has been heavier than typical for such days in the past.

Several dozens or more pages back, there was someone complaining that blueprints and other technical information gleaned from those prints were “spoiling” the surprise of the new coaster. Complaining. About decoding. In the clearly labeled decoding thread. That is easy to avoid by not clicking on it. Unfortunately there are always going to be people who are more interested in attempting to control others’ behavior, even/especially when it is not their place to do so, rather than focusing on modifying their own behavior in perfectly simple and reasonable ways... Usually when I don’t like the way a thread is going I try to steer it back with content rather than complaints. So on that note I’d like to revisit the suggestion that the previous Board to Death/Chaos Haunt building was repainted this year in colors that look suspiciously like the Giga. There was one pic but it got kind of washed away by something else happening. I think it would be expert level hinting by the park if they hid that in plain site and we all missed it while searching fervently for teasers I'm going to look to see if I have any photos of the building before this year, if someone else has some please share

Last evening as I was walking between the Festhaus and Eiffel Tower, one of the stiltwalkers was also heading that way, somewhat behind me. I will tell you, I don’t spook easily, but there was something very ominous-feeling about being “chased” by one. I think adding some stilt-walkers to Haunt could be an awesome addition. I also agree that Haunt and Winterfest processions or parades, even if it’s just the characters and no floats, would be really fun.

When I rode it this week while things were down, me and my friends just started singing different portions of each of the shed songs to entertain ourselves while we waited.

It is blueberry. It is not blue raspberry.

https://www.trademarkia.com/ I haven’t used it recently but as I recall there’s even a way you can tell it to email you if a certain company files a trademark

My first year riding DB was the last year before the seatbelts. There has not been a perceptible difference in time to send out trains before and after belts. Diamondstack was definitely a name used before the seatbelts. IME it is the bins and riders who need extra work to get their clamshells locked that slow down dispatches, not the belts. When ride ops go along and gather bags rather than allowing people to go to the bins themselves, dispatch speed is greatly increased.

I was fortunate enough to see the parade dress rehearsal last night. From the first glimpses I had of the floats (when they were mostly covered in tarps around Timberwolf), I was fascinated with them. They are gorgeous, and well beyond what I would have expected for a temporary event. During the parade, though, I barely noticed them. There is so much going on! So many amazing and excited performers! The floats are fantastic, but this parade as a whole is well beyond even that. This event is spectacular, and definitely not something to risk missing.

I generally don’t care that much if it’s an adult. I do not like being sat with other people’s kids because the kids usually are uncomfortable with it.

Usually. However, unless the forecast changes this year, I don’t expect many people will tough it out.

If this is how they are instructing ride ops to be line separators, they are setting them up for failure. People are pretty good at filling in on their own, most have some area of the train they’d prefer, and others will just take whatever row doesn’t have someone in it. Even on a busy day, micromanaging the line will generally only end up with one extra train-worth of people every hour, max. If the micromanaging ride op is interrupted by something like measuring a child, often a half full train will be dispatched before they can get back to it, removing any “progress” that was made by sacrificing rider comfort and desires in return for fully filled seats. And, assigning rows, especially pairing up single or odd numbers, on a day where the maximum wait is two trains, is only going to make a lot of people angry, not even result in more riders per hour. Some are like me, and will request a specific row if I care enough (or not ride at all if refused a reasonable seat change), go along otherwise, and only stop by guest services if it is particularly egregious (like last year when a young woman was being a despot assigning seats, pairing people, and adamantly refusing any requests, on Adventure Express of all things, on a rainy day where about four rows per train were being used), but most people ARE going to take out their frustration at the ridiculous practice on the person in front of them who is telling them something stupid. It doesn’t matter if the person has been told by their superiors to do or say that stupid thing, most people aren’t going to recognize that. So, once again, if this is how they’re being trained, they are being set up for failure. Last year, when I did complain at guest services I was told it is up to the separator (but that they would forward my complaint to her supervisor to suggest she maybe lighten up a tad). So there is not a single way they are expected to do their job. Most of them ultimately figure out things go a lot smoother if they don’t try to strong-arm the riders.

I had an interesting experience with that yesterday. I asked for a specific row on FoF, and after I went to it and he completed filling the rest of the train, the separator came over and asked why I liked that particular row. He was just curious, and I did have an explanation. I did notice at the park yesterday in particular there seemed to be a push on the separators for full trains, which, if anyone else was there, was a little silly. Because there were so few people at the park, because of the weather, even DB typically only had a little over two train’s of a line at the max all day.

Yeah, they had this on the outside of the windows there, I wondered about it. I bought two different t-shirts yesterday. The blue one with “beads” on it is only $10, and the black one with the big jester face on the back comes with a free matching pin, for around $19. Couldn’t resist.

The people who do it don’t care that it’s against the rules any more than they care about anyone in line... it’s just like the phones on rides, without enforcement the rules won’t prevent self-absorbed people doing whatever suits them.

Every year, it takes a while for new ride ops to learn that people seat themselves pretty well and nearly fill trains, if you just pulse the line and let a couple trains worth of people through at a time, and that doing so is a lot less stressful and angers people a lot less than trying to micromanage seating arrangements. Some of them start off the year thinking it is their job to micromanage seating, but eventually they’re going to send out half-empty trains because they’re interrupted by something like a height check, they’ll have riders annoyed because they can’t choose their seats, etc. The most effective job of a separator, in my opinion, isn’t to get fully packed trains, especially on days with short lines anyway. It is facilitating a smooth flow of loading, preventing too many people into the station at once (which can make it difficult for people to naturally fill in empty rows, coordinate riding with their friends, etc), and getting trains as full as possible without sacrificing rider comfort. And generally, for every one of us who has a specific seat we want and are willing to wait a couple more trains to fulfill that, there are others who are willing to take whatever seat allows them to get on a train without waiting. Micromanaging makes at least half of us unhappy, pulsing the line allows each type of rider to get what they want, and generally ends up with nearly as full seats. And I agree that the worst is being placed with a kid by a seat-filling micromanager. A child generally wants to ride with a strange adult even less than I would like to ride with a child.

I used my 50% off a caramel apple yesterday. The person I first asked about it wasn’t sure how to do it but at least recognized what I was talking about. She asked one of her coworkers who paged a supervisor, but before the supe arrived, a third young woman in the area said she knew how to do it and made it happen. And they cut it up for me, and I sat by the fountains, and ate the whole thing all by myself

Coincidentally, the FBI released records pertaining to Bigfoot under the FOIA https://vault.fbi.gov/bigfoot (if you don’t want to weed through it, the short answer is that the “squatch fur” that was submitted was sent to a lab and determined to be from a deer)

That was during Origins, not Gravity. They did have some preshow last year, with either the big green furry guy or the blue alien woman coming out to interact with the audience on some days/performances. So far this year the pre-recorded audio preshow is all they’ve had.

This is something that probably would have come up earlier if not for the trademarks recently registered by Cedar Fair... but we have no proof those are planned to be used for this coaster. Am I the only one who finds it interesting that the same year the new coaster is being built, The Beast footprints make their reappearance, and the finale song changes to one called Footprints? I propose Sasquatch as a potential name for the new Giga.